How to Change Your Life in 17 Minutes | Ep 330

I used to be completely stuck. At 19, I had been arrested six times one year, and I was at the absolute rock bottom of my life, and it was not until I accepted these six truths that I was able to truly change my life, build a multi-million dollar company, and build myself into the woman that I've always wanted to be. So if you are ambitious, but you are lazy, and you are ready to get unstuck, here is harsh truth number one. I call this the approval addiction. What if I told you that the real reason that you are stuck is not fear of failure, but it is actually your addiction to approval. When I first got into business, I remember that I actually was at a business mastermind. I was one of the youngest people there, I was also one of the only females, and I remember that someone came up to me, and they told me they were like, "Hey, is this what you normally wear?" I was like, "Uh, yeah." And at the time, it was like, I would wear like athleisure. I had like blue, lemon clothes. I was always wearing 'cause it was comfortable. And I remember this person told me, they were like, "So if you dress like this, I just want you to understand that nobody's ever gonna take you seriously." And so if you want to be taken seriously, one, you have to cover your whole body, and two, you can't dress like this. And I remember thinking, I was like, "Wait, are you serious?" And they're like, "Yeah, everybody here, they're not gonna take you seriously unless you change how you dress." I wouldn't say like the next four or five years, like literally all I thought about when I was getting changed in the morning was the fact of what they had said. And so I changed my whole wardrobe, and then I started dressing nothing I'd ever dress like before. I threw out all of my clothes that I felt comfortable in, and every day when I did wear my clothes, I felt comfortable in. I felt like people were looking at me funny, like they wouldn't take me seriously. I felt like I couldn't go to a business meeting like that. And I ended up just like losing confidence in myself. I remember until one day, I realized that regardless of if I was dressing like that, or I was dressing in the way that I wanted to dress, either I was getting the approval from others, or I was getting approval from myself. And I had continued to sacrifice my own self-approval for the approval of all these other people who I realized I didn't look up to, I didn't want their lives, and I actually didn't even really respect them. And I said, "What am I doing?" So what I do, I put back on my clothes, and I said, "Fuck it, I'm gonna do things so I wanna do them." Now, here's the reality. Most people hesitate to step up because they are terrified of being judged. They want approval and they wanna fit in just like I did. More than they want to succeed, they want to win, they want to have the life that they've always wanted to build, they wanna be the person that they wanna be. If you're unwilling to be misunderstood, you are essentially unwilling to get unstuck. So here's what I want you to do. Write down one thing that you're holding back on because you are afraid of what people will think about you. And then what you can do is you can take one small step towards that action today. Post a piece of content. Have a hard conversation with somebody. Just speak the truth to somebody. Put an idea, pen to paper. Do something, allow yourself to be judged. Do not fight it. It's like a lot of times when we feel like we're being judged, we immediately wanna get out of that zone. We're like, "I don't wanna feel like I'm being judged." But if you just stay there and you allow yourself to be judged, what you will find on the other side of that is actually freedom. Because once you realize that you can tolerate judgment for other people, you can have anything you want and you can be whoever you want. Next, truth number two, success demands a trade. What if the life that you say you want is blocked by the life that you are unwilling to give up? For me, something that I was unwilling to give up for a period of time in my life is that I prioritized comfort over growth when it came to my friend and my body. Now what does that mean? I was so comfortable in the friend group that I had that I chose remaining friends with these people rather than having the life I wanted. Because I knew that if I wanted to pursue that life, I would lose those friends. I remember that I had a group of friends that I lived with in a house. They were all great people. But I realized at that time that it was really hard for me to become the person I want to become to do the things I want to do when I was with those people. Now why was that? Because all of their habits worked against the habits that I would have to build to be that person. And so every time I would start to do something different, I would start to deviate from the norm. It'd be like little things they would say and little judgments they would cast upon me and I just remember that slight discomfort. It was just enough friction to make me think, you know what, it's fine. I don't need to do that. I love them. They're so fun to hang out with. These are my friends. Who would I be with without them? They'd been my friends forever. And until I really got to the point where I said, you know what, I want to become that person more than I want to keep all of my friends. It wasn't until that moment that I wasn't able to change. Here's the thing. You do not get what you want most in life. I know that sounds terrible and I know that we all want that. We're like, if I want it bad enough, I'm gonna get it. But you don't. You get what you work for. And most people are actually working to keep their comfort. Think about it. Like at that point, I was working so hard to keep my friends. I was working so hard to keep my beliefs. I was working so hard to keep myself stuck because everybody says they want success. Very few people can actually show it with their actions. We are not our desires. We are our actions. If your time and your calendar and your money do not reflect your goals and the life that you say you want, then be honest with yourself. It's not really the life you want. You want the life you currently have more than the one you say you want. That's it. If you wanted that one more, you would be on your way to getting it. The disconnect between desire and behavior is what keeps you stuck in the patterns that you hate and the life that you hate because those patterns are easier than choosing growth. So here's what you can do. Look at your calendar. Look at your bank account. Look at where you spend your time and money. Highlight, where it actually goes. Where does most of your time and money actually go? And then ask yourself, it's circle it. What doesn't line up with what you say you want? Talk is cheap. It's the oldest saying in the book, but like, I didn't really get this style as adult. The only thing that matters is what they do. So circle the one thing. One thing that you are spending time or money on that is not leading to life you want. And then replace that with something that will. Maybe it's right now. You're like, you know what? I'm spending $200 a month later on my nails, but I don't spend $200 on a gym membership and I'm out of shape and I feel like I should be working out. Great, screw your nails, do them at home for a few months, get the gym membership. Well, maybe you're like, you know what? Every Tuesday I go to Taco Tuesday with my friends and we get drunk and then I wake up on Wednesday and then I kind of hate myself and I feel anxious. I've got the anxiety. And then the next day I'm like, crap, why did I do that? And then I take like two days to recover. My stomach's all messed up. I feel anxious. I text somebody that I wish I didn't text. What could we replace that with? What if instead you just stayed home and you watched educational YouTube videos for 90 minutes? Which ones can I get you to the life that you want? Do this for a week, a month, a year. It's the little changes like this that compound and it actually bring you to the person you want to be. Now, number three, clarity comes from motion, not the other way around. I know that nobody ever wants to hear this and I don't even like hearing it because guess what? I have to go to myself. But waiting to feel ready is the biggest trap that you can fall into when it comes to doing anything that you want to do. I did not feel ready when I started my first company, Jim Want, when I gave up all of my clients. I had a roster of personal chain clients. I gave all of them up to start this company. I never felt ready. I did not feel ready when I started making content. I did not feel ready when I moved across the country. I did not feel ready when I got married. I did not feel ready when I started acquisition.com. None of it. I have never felt ready for the success that came my way. The only thing that will make you ready for something is doing it. Think about this. You will only ever feel ready. The second time you do something. That's it. So if you haven't done it before, you're never gonna feel ready. The second time you do it, you can feel ready. The first time, never gonna feel ready. So if you are waiting to start your life, you will never have the life you want. What is a time in your life where you took action before you felt ready and what happened? If you're watching this video, you didn't die. You still here? Can't be that bad. Most people have this backwards. They wait their entire life to feel ready instead of acting their way to readiness. Confidence does not come first. You're not gonna feel confident before you do the first rep. You will feel confident or more confident on the second rep, but you will not feel confident before the first rep. Action comes first. Action builds experience. Experience then builds competence, right? You're getting the skills. And then that competence having those skills is what creates confidence. And then from there, you can go into something feeling great. This is what you're gonna do. Write down one thing that you've been waiting to feel ready for. Break it down into the smallest first step. Do one today. Seriously, one of the best pieces of advice I ever got from somebody. If you make a plan, start the first step today. Why is that? You buy yourself in. We have to get ourselves to buy in our own plans. This is not mutually exclusive for like somebody else's plans. You need to get your own buy in. And you do that by taking action. Truth number four, thoughts are just noise. Hey, this might sound crazy, but you don't have to believe everything you think. I know, it's fucking insane. When I was younger, this is one of the things that I did not understand. I'd be like, I'm fucking nuts. What the hell? I am negative. And I realized I was like, oh no, this is just how your brain works. Like for me, one of my biggest insecurities ever since I lost weight is that I always feel like I'm still a hundred pounds heavier. I've been at the gym and I will walk past the gym and be like, she looks good. Oh, what got to me? I'm like, no, I'm a hundred pounds heavier because most of my life I was chubby. I was made fun of. I was overweight. And so if like this disassociation in my mind, how did I overcome that? I started telling myself these thoughts aren't real. These thoughts are old thoughts. In fact, they're outdated. I'm like, oh, my computer system needs an update. That's how your mind is sometimes. Sometimes you just need an update. You might be dealing with thoughts, you're a failure. You suck. You're ugly. You're never gonna need a boyfriend. You're never gonna get a girlfriend. You're never gonna be popular if people don't like you. Where did those come from? Like, think about the thoughts that you think the most. The toughest, intrusive thoughts you have. Where did they come from? Probably not you, but you just keep replaying them in the system over and over again. And so sometimes what we have to do is we have to step back and we have to say, you know what? One, these thoughts are not facts. Two, I need an update. So what do I want to update these thoughts with? Certainly something better than this, right? It's like, well, if it's not true, it's playing in my head all day. Fuck it, I might as well make something not true that makes me feel better about myself than this shit thing in my head. Most people let their internal dialogue steer their actions without ever questioning it. Now, this is the definition of living on autopilot. And it needs to stop if you actually wanna change your life. You have to be able to sit there and say, you know what? I don't believe everything I think. And this is why we use a tool called Thought Attachment. That is the process of identifying certain thoughts as optional. That's it. It's like your thoughts are not facts. They're just words and pictures in your head. You can take it or leave it. It's up to you. Would you like to believe this thought today? Or would you not like to believe this thought today? And some people say, well, Leila, I do think that that thought is true. Like, you know, my husband said this, I do think I've gained five pounds. Maybe you have gained five pounds. Do you think thinking I'm a fat piece of shit is helpful? It's just not helpful. So at some point, you have to be like, it might be true, but it doesn't help me. Instead, I could think, you know what? I have gained five pounds and I can also lose five pounds. So I'm about to ask the next time that you feel stuck in a cycle of overthinking, try labeling the thought. I noticed that I'm having a thought that I'm fat. I noticed that I'm having a thought that I had not smart. I noticed that I'm having a thought that I'm a complete fucking failure. Visualize it like this. I think of it like I am off-road. I have my car pulled on the side of the highway and I watch all these cars driving by and those cars are my thoughts. And each one of them, I see them in the car. And then I'm like, do I want to get in? Do I not want to get in? Do I want to get in with that stranger? Do I want to get in with that guy? Do I want to get into the Lamborghini or the Rolls Royce? You get to choose. That's the cool thing. And if you do this consistently, you will cut the power out of your thoughts that have what you feel is a lot more power over your actions. If you take a lot of the juice out of them, you almost like draining it of gas, it's a lot weaker, and then it's a lot easier to detach from it. This brings us to point number five, which is acceptance is power. What if the thing that you keep resisting is actually the key to your growth for years? I did not understand the concept that thoughts are not facts and I did not understand the concept that we all have negative emotions. And so I would go around having tons of negative emotions, feeling super anxious and super stressed. This is my early 20s. And I remember thinking all the time, I was like, like, if somebody knew what was in my head, I would not get a boyfriend. I'm gonna be married. My friends would be like, you're crazy bitch. I remember thinking those things all the time. And then I remember I got married, you know, lucky him. Eventually one day I started talking to him and I'm like, I just don't want to tell you all the crazy thoughts I have in my head. He was like, why? And I was like, I mean, like, what if you think I'm crazy? And I remember that moment, my husband was like, so what? That led me to this tool, which is the so what? I was like, oh, I like that. So what? He's like, so what? Still very cute. Still cute. I don't think I'll change much. And I was just like, oh wow. And it diffused so much of my emotion around the situation that all of a sudden I started spewing everything at him. I was like, I think this and this and this. And he was like, hmm, checks out. And then I was like, what if, what if I could do that for myself? And so now, what I learned is that every time I have a thought that feels scary, feels big, feels gross, feels negative, then I need to say to myself, so what? So what? So what, that you think that? You are a tiny speck on this giant universe. And that thought will go away as fast as it came. So I want you to try this mental reframe. Think of active acceptance as a tool in your toolbox. Active acceptance is just saying so what? You're like, what if this happened to my boyfriend breaks up with me and then this happens and blah, blah, blah. So what? Half of being stuck comes from resisting reality. It comes from resisting your thoughts, resisting the negative feelings. So acceptance means carrying the circumstances, the feelings, the thoughts with you rather than fighting them. Now, what you will find is that this does not mean that you're giving up. It means that you move forward with reality, not against it. And this takes so much of the power out of a situation, a thought or a feeling. Now, this is how you can actually put it into practice. Right now I'm going to ask you this. What in your life right now is unfair? What is unfair? Maybe you have a bad boss or a really heavy workload with your job or bad customer review. Next to it, right? So what? I can carry this. Then ask yourself this, what is one productive action that you can take while being uncomfortable holding that thought or circumstance? Because here's the thing, the price of your dreams tomorrow is the discomfort of accepting it today. Which brings us to our final and most important truth. You need to audit your beliefs. There's a reason that we call them your beliefs, not facts, not the universal beliefs. We know that our beliefs shape our reality. And what's crazy is that our beliefs might be completely fucking wrong and crazy, right? We've identified this. One of the biggest beliefs that I've had to learn is that fear means something's dangerous. I used to have so many feelings, a fear of anxiety, and they would feel paralyzing almost. Like literally like sweaty hands. I'd feel like my mouth is foaming, not foaming, but I'm losing like spit in my mouth. Foaming would be tough. That'd be a seizure. You should go to the doctor view and that happens to you. But I would have, you know, no spit in my mouth. Like I'm so nervous about something. And I used to think when I was younger that that meant that that thing was dangerous and that finally when I really understood that this was just a belief I had about any situation I was really scared. It was because I had an irrational belief about that thing. You know, some people have an irrational fear of spiders and a rational fear of flying. And the crazy thing is that more people will die in a car crash this year than they will in a plane crash. Yet people are way more scared of flying than they are of the car. I've had plenty of those things and I think what I used to think is that fear equals bad. Then when I realized that fear equals a rational belief that it is time to break, when you have unchecked beliefs, I'll never succeed. This thing is dangerous. This business is gonna die. This guy's gonna leave me. And then you let them silently dictate every action or inaction you take. That is when you get stuck. So if you're watching this video and you're thinking I am stuck in some way, maybe you're stuck in a cycle of destructive beliefs. Because think about this. The only beliefs that we don't question are the ones that we don't even know our beliefs. We assume them as truths. And so what I'd like you to do is try to believe swap. You're gonna identify your irrational beliefs and we're gonna replace them with rational ones. What freaks you out? What makes you anxious? What pisses you off? What things provide you with the most highest irrational emotional reaction? Is it when your boyfriend, you see a like of another girl on Instagram? Does that make you really fucking pissing? You want to go like slash on tires? Is it when a customer leaves you one bad review and then all of a sudden you want to shut down your business 'cause you think that your business sucks? Irrational beliefs keep us stuck. Rational beliefs move us forward. If you can change your beliefs, you can change your life. So write down one irrational belief that you keep repeating. Maybe it's all never succeed. And then ask three questions. One, is this logical? Two, where is the proof in this actual world that this is a real belief? And lastly, does this belief help me? Maybe it is wackadoodle, but maybe it is true, but is it helpful? And does believing it make your life better or worse? Re-write it as irrashably you can actually live by. Now what does that mean? I am not a proponent of, you know, I lost a hundred pounds and I was not like, I am a victorious secret model. I was like, no, I'm not, I said I love chunk. But I said, no, no, I'm healthy and I work hard. I can achieve my dream body if I work hard enough for long enough. That's a rational belief to have. Versus, I'm gonna be the queen of England or I'm gonna, you know, make it to the moon. I'm gonna beat you long months. It's like, all right, well, that's a tough stretch. Let's try and make us something that's believable that when we say it, we feel empowered and we feel more confident. So those are rational beliefs. And here's the thing, once you write down that rational belief, if you act on it, you will actually bet it and you will start to believe it over time. Trust me, the sooner that you accept these truths, the sooner you will be able to change your life.